1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical fiber connector for splicing a plurality of optical fibers integrally, and also relates to a method of manufacturing the optical fiber connector mentioned above.
2. Description of the Related Art
A known optical fiber connector for splicing a plurality of optical fibers integrally, is shown in FIG. 4, including an optical fiber connector 21 comprising a V-groove substrate 22 having a number of V-grooves 23 on which a number of optical fibers 24 are set respectively, and a cap plate 25 for pressing the optical fibers 24 from an upper side. In the optical fiber connectors 21 mentioned above, if the optical fiber connectors 21 each having the construction shown in FIG. 4 are stacked with each other so as to increase the number of the optical fibers to be spliced, there is a drawback such that the optical fibers 24 arranged above and below optical fiber connectors 21 are not positioned accurately. Moreover, there are drawbacks such that the optical fiber connector 21 becomes large, the number of members to be used for the optical fiber connector 21 becomes larger, and a working surface is not used effectively.
Further, one example of an optical fiber connector for splicing more number of the optical fibers integrally is shown as "Ultra high density single-mode 50-fiber connectors" in DENSI-TSUHIN-JYOHO-GAKKAI, 70th commemorative meeting, summary No 1999, page 9-82, 1987. FIG. 5 is a schematic view showing one embodiment of the optical fiber connector mentioned above. As shown in FIG. 5, an optical fiber connector 31 for splicing 50 optical fibers integrally is manufactured by stacking five optical fiber tapes each having ten optical fibers 32 in line in an accurate manner through resin members by means of a resin injection method and so on.
In the optical fiber connector 31, as is the same as the optical fiber connector 21, a positional relation between ten optical fibers 32 arranged in line is accurate since the optical fiber tape is used, but the optical fibers 32 arranged above and below optical fiber tapes are not positioned accurately. As a result, when a plurality of optical fibers are spliced by using the optical fiber connectors mentioned above, the optical fibers are not spliced accurately and a light transmitting loss becomes larger, so that signals transmitting through the optical fibers are reduced in the optical fiber connectors.